Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In July of this year a group of medical professionals from the Launceston General Hospital marked 10 years of working as volunteers for the Pacific Islands program run by the Australasian College of Surgeons global health and funded by DFAT. The program, which launched in 1995, strengthens specialised clinical services, clinical governance, specialist education training and workforce development across the Pacific region, which over the course of two decades has seen more than 600 volunteer medical teams visit 11 Pacific Islands countries, providing over 60,000 consultations and 16,000 procedures.

In the community of Bass we are fortunate to have a wonderful group of medical professionals who have been part of this program. And, though they will undoubtedly cringe from the recognition, I believe that it's incredibly important to recognise their work in the specialty area of orthopaedic surgery in Vanuatu. Under the guidance of the team leader, Dr John Batten, until his retirement in early September, the team focused on running a prosthetic program for children born with clubbed feet. Seven children in every thousand are born with club foot compared to one in every thousand here in Australia. Thank you to the following staff who beyond performing necessary operations have been capacity building, educating and clinically training the local staff at the Vila Central Hospital, and more recently at Santo hospital: John Batten, Roger Butorac, Henning Els, Kate Taylor, and Paul Van Nynanten and JeanVan Nynanten.